MIchael Belton has been involved in the study of planetary objects, particularly comets, throughout his entire career. Educated first at the
Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Gainsborough, UK, then at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and
finally at the University of California at Berkeley. His doctoral thesis on "The Interaction of Type II Comet Tails with the Interplanetary Medium"
under Dr. J.C. Brandt earned him a Ph.D. degree in 1964. A detailed
vita is available. Dr Belton moved to the
Kitt Peak National Observatory in 1964 and joined the "Space Division" there to do research in Planetary Science. He remained at Kitt Peak until 2000, when he left the observatory to set up
Belton Space Exploration Initiatives, LLC. He continues to hold the rank of Emeritus Astronomer at the Observatory.

While at Kitt Peak he pursued a diverse set of projects: high resolution spectroscopy of molecules in planetary atmospheres to yield the abundances, effective pressures, and temperatures of atmospheric gases; studies of the rotational properties of planets and motions in their atmospheres; the recovery of comets; and mapping of planetary topography through high resolution spectrography from the ground. With a colleague he was able to make the first crude global topographic maps of the surface of Mars. Moving his interests from ground-based studies into space he participated in the Venus-Mercury Mariner 10 mission, the Voyager and Galileo missions to the outer planets,
and several cometary missions:
Deep Impact,
Contour,
Stardust-NExT, and
DIXI(EPOXI). For these missions he focused on ultra-violet spectroscopy and imaging studies. For more than twenty years, from 1978 until 2002, he led the Galileo Imaging Science Team in their high-resolution imaging studies of Venus, Earth's Moon, the asteroids Ida, Gaspra, and Dactyl, the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter, Jupiter's atmosphere, the Galilean satellites - Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, the small satellites and Jupiter's ring system. He
was the Deputy Principle Investigator for Deep Impact and Contour.

Throughout these studies Belton maintained a strong interest in comets and the problems associated with understanding the nature of the cometary nucleus. This interest was at first focused on a study of comet 1P/Halley. The work began with the search to recover Halley in the late 70's. With the 4-meter telescope on Kitt Peak he and his colleagues found the comet one day later than competing Californian astronomers, his search however, provided the first astrometric positions. Perhaps his best work on the comet followed the Giotto explorations of 1P/Halley in 1986. He was able to rationalize conflicting evidence from space and ground-based observations and derive the "wobbling" spin state of the nucleus. This led to the first accurate map of active areas on the surface of any comet.

His current cometary research seeks to extend these discoveries and he is using observation of different molecules and dust to gain deeper insight into the properties of these regions of activity. He has also helped to develop a concept for a kinetic impactor to explore the regions below the cometary surface. To further these interests he participated as deputy principal investigator on the ill-fated CONTOUR mission and participated, in the same role, in the
highly successful
Deep Impact
mission. He was a member of the scientific teams on the Stardust-NExT
and DIXI(EPOXI) Discovery Missions of Opportunity.
NExT targeted the Stardust spacecraft on an extended mission to comet
9P/Tempel 1, which was the target of the Deep Impact mission. In this way the
evolution of the comets surface could be stuidied.The DIXI(EPOXI)
mission
took the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft to a successful flyby of 103P/Hartley 2 in
November 2010.
NExT had a successful flyby of 9P/Tempel 1 in February 2011. Belton is also involved with the NASA
SDAP program and is involved as a co-investigator on several projects that are
concerned with further analysis of the spacecraft and earth based data set on
various comets.

In terms of service to the community Belton is a past chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society
(AAS) and for a short period was a vice-president of the AAS. Most recently he chaired the first "decadal" study of Solar System Exploration for the National Research Council and a NASA Workshop on the "Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids."

He has published over 290 articles on research topics in planetary science (see detailed
bibliography) and, in 1995, he was awarded the Gerard P. Kuiper Prize in Planetary Science by the American Astronomical Society. Also in recognition of his work, minor planet 3498 has been named for him.